Teachers Unite

by Svetlana Gibson

As I read and re-read the “Digital Literacy” article by Dobson and Willinsky and “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies” by The New London Group, I couldn’t help thinking that something was missing. Both articles put forth new ideas and provided the reader with valuable and thought provoking information and yet were incomplete. What is missing is a page in the articles which explicitly states how to “creat[e] access to the evolving language of work, power, and community, and [foster] the critical engagement necessary for them to design their social futures and achieve success through fulfilling employment.” (The New London Group, p.1) The multiliteracies approach strives to fulfill the above goal, which is a noble one, but the article left me wanting practical strategies which I could use in my Grade 5 classroom, consisting of students ranging in reading and comprehension levels from none at all (ESL students as well as native speakers) to Grade 7.

The authors of the “A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies” article assert that “literacy pedagogy now must account for the burgeoning variety of text forms associated with information and multimedia technologies.” (p. 2) I absolutely agree because if we don’t, then the students will not be able to fully participate in and take advantage of the new media. I also strongly believe that we must not give ourselves wholly to the new. We must also make room for three R’s – Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. For the students to be able to fully participate in their community they must be well grounded in the basics of reading and writing. I am not sure if we can skip the basics but I am sure we can teach concurrently with teaching them to navigate the superhighway of the new technologies. The authors agreed that the “disparities in educational outcomes did not seem to be improving.” (p.3) They went on to state they agreed that “what students needed to learn was changing, and that the main element of this change was that there was not a singular, canonical English that could or should be taught anymore.” (p.3) The article was written in 1996 but I am glad we still teach the standard English language, including Canadian spelling. “[Cultural] differences and rapidly shifting communications media” (p.3) notwithstanding, we must have a clear picture of what it is we want our students to achieve and how we are going to do it. Having a single standard of English language will not hamper students’ progress. If anything, it will help level the playing field as long as we teach it to all students and expose them to the cultural differences and the rapidly shifting communications media.

The idea of multiliteracies is a sound one but we must not stray too far from reality with its bright, vibrant and multi leveled students who come from an incredible array of backgrounds. We must remember that many teachers who are currently working in the classrooms come from pre technology based education and will need instruction and support to themselves become comfortable with the new technology. Not all teachers are yet comfortable in giving up the reins of power and the repositories of knowledge and allowing their classrooms to become collaborative environments not just among students but with the teacher as well. The change to a classroom where the teacher is the facilitator in students’ acquisition of knowledge is here but it is far from being the norm yet.

The authors assert that “as educators, we have a greater responsibility to consider the implication of what we do in relation to a productive working life.” (p.6) As educators, we must be cautious not to focus all our efforts on teaching solely to the “working life” of students and the demands of the marketplace. It is one thing to teach our students to be adaptable, innovative, creative, critical thinkers but we must be careful which one we promote: “as opening new educational and social possibilities or as new systems of mind control or exploitation.” (p.7) The authors, when stating that “it may well be that market-directed theories and practices, even though they sound humane, will never authentically include a vision of meaningful success for all students” (p.7) need to take a stronger stance and state that it will never include all students, and it should not include all students.

If “our job is not to produce docile, compliant workers” (p.7) then we need to allow students to question, teach them how and then allow them to question the teachers and the information presented to them and the way it is being presented. We cannot ask students to “develop capacity to speak up, to negotiate, and to be able to engage critically with the conditions of their working lives” (p.7) without allowing them to do the same in the classroom. We must go even further and demonstrate it by questioning ourselves. We cannot produce students who are critical thinkers by ourselves being “docile, compliant workers.”

I feel that these articles highlight the disparity between the academically centered educators, and those of us in the trenches. While their ideas are good, they lack grounding in the real world issue of a modern classroom. If we are to achieve a true multiliteracies approach, there must be a melding of the classroom teacher and the academic educator.

I certainly agree with this statement
“I also strongly believe that we must not give ourselves wholly to the new. We must also make room for three R’s – Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. For the students to be able to fully participate in their community they must be well grounded in the basics of reading and writing. I am not sure if we can skip the basics but I am sure we can teach concurrently with teaching them to navigate the superhighway of the new technologies.”
Yes we cannot omit the basics. I believe that to be fair to the New London Group and Dobson and Willinsky we have to assess the audience for which the articles is written. For people like me these articles were really fascinating and motivated me to view literacy in a new light. They provided a springboard for me even though I agree that perhaps they could now write subsequent articles to really show more practical examples of how we can really encourage digital literacy among our students. I believe that they take it for granted that the prerequisites would have been established with the aid of learning softwares like Reader Rabbit , Hooked on Phonics and Starfall.com. I think that they want us to see digital literacy as an extension of basic literacy. These articles may not have been impressive to persons who are more knowledgable of the field.
However I want to be a part of your club. I have some real independent thinkers that I have created through a last minute blog I just set up. The process will continue as this is one of my first online courses.
Happy Holidays!